Betty & Earl

Short, Challenging, Cryptic, Adorable, Toki Pona Approved 10/10 would be confused while dying in the ever growing fire again

Betty and Earl is a fun moderately challenging abstract puzzle game. The minimalist style is great and the puzzles are challenging without being frustrating. Overall it feels very polished.

If you're looking for a relaxing puzzle game look no further. Great minimalist art, relaxing sound track, puzzles that start simple and build in steps. Generally there is an insane amount of polish on everything too. Feels like a very clean and peaceful experience. There's a real satisfaction to the bite sized nature of each level, and that's not to say the game is small but that it's broken up in a really satisfying way. There's a good mix of easy and hard puzzles, with the hardest puzzles being optional but the game tracks your completion of certain tasks. There are little extra challenge ways of solving each puzzle too that are kept track of. I imagine you could spend a lot of time with this game if you are a completionist. Also there's something a little extra? or almost creepy? about the atmosphere of the game that gives it personality. Looking forward to playing more!

[h1]SPOILERS BELOW:[/h1] The final area is what tilts this review into neutral instead of positive territory. It takes puzzles you've already solved (as far as I know) and groups 2-6 of them together into a single level such that your inputs apply to all puzzles in the group simultaneously. Analyzing every puzzle in the group step-by-step to make sure no inputs make a puzzle unsolvable in an attempt to solve another is something that die-hard fans of simultaneous movement puzzles might appreciate, but for me was a reminder of why that style is not to my taste. Then the game starts positioning some puzzles in the group such that they're half off-screen, an obfuscation / memory element that to me seemed equal parts superfluous and obnoxious. The end credits hide a puzzle that does not appear on screen at all; presumably you'd have to rely on audio cues and perhaps decrypting the in-game language (or something else I'm missing) to solve it. This puzzle is probably the epitome of what I don't want from the game. I did appreciate that Betty & Earl reused levels but repopulated them with different elements to make the solutions vary significantly. This was clever and reminded me of Induction, one of my favorite puzzlers. If the game had so limited itself, my review might actually have turned out positive even despite my general distaste for simultaneous movement as a puzzling style. Alas.

Cute little puzzle game. I've completed the first couple worlds getting hearts on each one. So far haven't been stuck for too long but I can see that the difficulty will ramp up.

The game is a laid-back puzzler that does a great job layering on new twists and complexities. I really enjoyed that the same level "base" was used in later levels but with new mechanical doodads added. It was an interesting way to sorta 'revisit' areas you learned before. Kinda felt related to that metroidvania feeling. Chill vibes, interesting take on the sliding mechanic from Threes / 2048 but with more meat on the bones. Thumbs up.

I am not good at puzzle games. This game is a great entry point with easy to understand controls. Worked great on Steam Deck too (4k, just under 30fps when on a TV, 60fps 720p when just on Deck and should be great for battery life).

Charming little block sliding puzzle game with heart. Game has a gentle learning curve, fun new mechanics to explore as you go, and I personally really like the big blocky art style. If you're a puzzle game fan be sure to pick this up, it's a lot of fun!

This is a very smooth puzzle game. It pairs polished presentation with quick, satisfying pacing. The two tiered solutions make it feel like progression is a constant reward and the struggle for perfection is your own choice to make.

The genius in the design is how intuitive and instantly accessible the gameplay is. That, coupled with a beautiful art style and clever puzzles, make this game a total gem.